Hi Everybody! My name is Chris and I am currently a junior majoring in finance at Baruch.

I believe that Kant’s view on Enlightenment is that for a person to truly achieve it, one must be able to think and reason solely by oneself without being influenced by the views and thoughts of other people or institutions around them. Kant mentions that “laziness” and “cowardice” are two primary barriers that prevent mankind from reaching what he believes is Enlightenment. Laziness can prevent a person from attaining Enlightenment because simply following what others believe or what others think is a lot simpler than having your own view on a certain issue or topic. It is definitely easier to depend on other people who may be deemed as professionals in a certain field to tell you the correct answer or approach to a problem instead of thinking of a solution by yourself. Kant believes that once a person is accustomed to being lazy, it is difficult for them to break away from it because of the danger of the unknown and the fear of heading into a scenario where an individual doesn’t have guidance from another person. Cowardice also plays an important role in Kant’s argument because during his lifetime, the Church and the State had a lot of power and also tried to control the mass population with their doctrines or laws. People were afraid to go against these two institutions, which resulted in many people blindly following what the Church preached or what the State thought was good instead of thinking for themselves.

Based on Kant’s definition of Enlightenment, I believe we currently aren’t even close to achieving it. Our society today fails to get pass Kant’s two barriers preventing Enlightenment, which were and still are laziness and cowardice. With the popularity of social media in our society today, many people just follow the views and beliefs of popular people on social media without even hesitating. Most people also cannot have a legitimate debate about a certain issue or topic and will stick to their opinions even if they are proven wrong by facts, which demonstrates their cowardice of being labeled as wrong. Most people just cannot accept that what they believe is labeled as wrong and instead of sitting down to discuss their opinion, they will simply refuse to discuss why they believe something is right and just say they are right without providing any facts or evidence. This is extremely prevalent in online forums or comment sections of news or articles. Instead of the Church and State, I believe that the corporations and government today are the two major and most powerful institutions that prevent people from reaching Kant’s version of Enlightenment. To achieve a high position in both of these institutions, many people must give up their ideas or thoughts to please their higher ups and meet company or government policy. Sometimes the best worker or the best politician with the greatest ideas will get fired or not voted into office because they couldn’t or wouldn’t suck up to their bosses or colleagues. I do agree with Kant’s definition of Enlightenment, but believe it will never be achieved by the human population.